Ares & Aphrodite
by Blanketspace
Summary: Several short drabble series involving an implied relationship between Miranda Lawson and Kai Leng, non-specified order.
1. stains

**setting**: pre-mass effect 2; miranda and leng had gone on a mission together, ending up in a compromise of their security. Miranda was captured and brutally maimed, but currently having her wounds treated by Kai Leng

**warning**: talk of abuse, gore.

* * *

Blood is simple, meaning pure and unadulterated behind the barest of forms and knits. It creates, it sustains, and it shows the full fledge existence of life, without it there would be no heartbeat, no warmth. Yet it's meant to stay inside of corded veins and tubing, not dashed about the floor or splattered in a pretty halo of hair. But as Leng sat before her, eyes glaring at the display of royal maroon set upon her form, he couldn't help but remark in thought of how pretty Lawson looked in red.

He touched her ankle first, fingers tracing along the shackle mark, steadily sneaking up the bruises that covered her knees, the scraps and scratches that caked over marred flesh. They lingered there, callused pads running about the shapes and malformations built from hostility, the abrasions leaking life under his nails as he listened to her suck in a breath.

The next touch was slower, a grip up her thigh, an inspection of cautious behavior, finding small rivulets of crimson snaking down the soft curve of her leg. With ease and gentleness unknown to even his subconscious, he brought a washcloth up to her leg, dabbing at her thigh noticing with rapt attention at the goose-prickled flesh under the caress, aiming to be careful, aiming to be something other than brutal – something other than what they both almost suffered.

He stretched his body, drawing the cloth up her hips, feeling the own ache and pulling his ribs, muscles shrieking under the tenderization of flesh and cracked bone but that would heal, easily in fact, laughably so. But a tendril of rage ripped through him at the sight of nail beds, dark red half-moons embedded in the silk flesh of her hips, not his own – a process he has stopped, a process that showered them, showered her, in something grotesque, a dress and scarf of liquid ruby.

The cloth lingered there, the cool soothing sensation causing her to shiver, he could tell, trying to wash away a mark that wasn't his, a mark that challenged him. He rose on his knees, kneeling before her for what seemed the first time, as she peered down at him with eyes so blue they could capture the ocean, open and regretful, scared but assured, an entire cacophony of sensations spiraling about his skull.

Natural grace urged him to bring a hand up, one still settled on her hip, while the other trailed with whispering touches on her arm, drawing over the slender curve of her shoulder before landing on her neck, thumb touching under her jaw to pull at the abrasion left there. Its trek not halted until brushed under bloodied lips, full and broken. He swore he could feel her pulse for just a second, before his own pulse stuttered and shook as she leaned forward.

Her lips pressed against the corner of his mouth in barest surprise, before taut arms wrapped about his neck. On cue, whether a thoughtful decision or not, he pulled himself around her, a hand in her hair and the other arm sliding around her back. It wasn't fair, none of it was fair, unspoken phrases and wants, the simple idea of what was once possessed could be so easily stolen from him. He enraged him, pulled a bestial side unfamiliar and dangerous across his spine. He hated it. Hated that his emotions got the better of him at the taunts of their captors, at the taunts against violating the woman in his arms – he couldn't let them, he didn't let them. But a mark still remained between the two of them, a simple brand to be tattooed in history and in trust, something never to be spoken about, nothing ever uttered from lips so sweet and so bruised.

She was trembling in his arms, and he wouldn't let go, not until she stopped, not until everything dripped out of her from the week's events. But not because it was comfort – it was only fear. Only fear that she wasn't the one trembling.


	2. stitches

**notes**: very short, follows "_Stains_."

* * *

He is clumsy, she notes with distaste. Not in the traditional way, but clumsy as his hands pass over her hip, fingers pressing down against broken and tender flesh, drawing a thread and needle past skin ruptured. Miranda's breath hitches, hips jerking on response as the needle clips an extra chunk of flesh.

"Nng, are you stitching me or goring me? Bloody."

She can feel his glare raking her body as the hands on her body grow stiff, the pulsating sensation on her side lessening from the pressure. Without hesitation, his fingers move back to work – this time the touch is ghost like, careful and deliberate, but she can still feel the tremble in each dig, each pull of string to knot, and the slip of skin from oozing crimson.

"We wouldn't be here if you didn't botch it the first time. Ahn-sodding hell!" Her head jerks up, pushing herself on her elbows to lean up, glaring down at him.

All she gains is an amusing glint to his eyes and straight lined mouth.

"We both know I'm better at carving into people rather than sewing them up."

"You could at least try a bit harder for me."

"I am."

Only 15 more to go.


	3. thunder

**notes**: set pre-me2, with a working headcanon that Miranda has astrophobia.

* * *

There is space between them, much like the outside – between the rain and the lightning, coursing after the rumble of thunder vibrating in her core. It's a type of tension, brought on from the storm – a tangible sort, mixing with feelings and platitudes. And she can't help but shiver as thunder claps outside the window, she can't help but bleat out a shriek as the room shakes with an angry fervor.

Her sapphire eyes shine over to him, hidden in the claps of her fingers and knees nudging up to comfort her own body. The plush of the bed does nothing but sinks her further into the mattress as she attempts to curl herself into oblivion. He makes no move, idly staring outside at the storm; pale eyes following the droplets of rain slithering down the window.

She notes how his arms lay motionless at his side, legs set evenly apart as his body rests next to hers on the bed, no motion – close enough to touch but far enough away to send a message of space. Her brain screams at her, wrenching itself out of her body and into a state of transcendence as another storm boom breaks against her world.

_Hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me, hold me…_

It echoes in her mind as she keeps her eyes on the only thing stagnant and calm in her vision, the only thing stable and just in her world. Her lips tremble against her arm, slightly angling her body to lean just a smidge closer and it makes her feel just a tad better while lightning blinds her vision.

A whimper is cut off from her mouth as a hand grips her shoulder, eyes widening in shock as her body grows still.

"Will touching me stop your whining?"

"... I,"

"I'll take that as a yes." Without a grunt of disapproval or a sneer adding to his face, the assassin pulls her close, just by one arm, wrapping about the length of her shoulder as she's brought into his side. And it's his warmth that brings her comfort, the steady sound of his heartbeat.

Or maybe it's the way his fingers dance slowly up and down the pale skin of her shoulder, distracting her from the storm brewing outside – she knows they'll stay like this until well after the weather has passed.


	4. limbs

**notes**: set during the events of me3; miranda see's lengs for the first time in years, after the accident.

* * *

A crosshair stitch, followed by a skin weave meshed with pale milk and tan scarred flesh above the kneecap, threading across joint and bone, joining heat with the solid brush of icy metal. Her fingertips ghosted across the union, afraid to touch as if the wounds were yesterday, borne from blood and bullet holes. She can feel the seize and twitch of muscle beneath skin as her hand met with natural skin again, only to trail down against metal hollows and wires merging with the soft flesh behind the knee. Such a thing horrified her, eyes trailing over scar tissue, marking patterns and memories that weren't hers; tattooing a concept across her mind as her other hand inspected the technical work carved into the calf.

Foolish questions near passed her lips, but her mouth remained clamped shut though the tremble in her lower lip was obvious as daylight. To allow her to even see – was this a blessing or a cruel joke played on her by the Gods? Over intimate since the arrival of previous events, for him to sit back passively with a haughty and judging glare to his eyes, as if to say her absence was the cause of... this, though far from the case.

But it begged the question, as her palm cupped the side of his knee, lifting to see barrel mechanism lodged in cartilage. Would he still have his legs if she hadn't left? They never separated as partners in the field after a few missions but this was during her stint on the Normandy... She could have prevented this if she stayed, maybe. Her bright eyes trailed the slithering line of a surgical scar up his thigh on the other leg, her free hand resting a palm flat against the developed muscle under marred skin.

He worked so efficiently; she would have never known had it not been brought in passing as her eyes scanned logs of procedures. But issue of already knowing didn't prevent the way her lips parted, mouth agape, sapphire irises shimmering, while a bloom of anger rose in her chest at the sight of the mutilation for the first time.

He sat down with ease, watching her with an avid fervor and within seconds she was on him, hands trembling and vision blurring. He allowed her to inspect, to study, to fuss, and crow but never once did she hush an apology, soothing words, or the like. They had no time for that; they never did.

Yet now she could feel his pulse in his thigh, thumb running along the dip of sinew on the inside as notice takes over that his one leg is damaged unevenly. Both lost at the knee completely, starved for skin rejection from movement, his wounds were ghoulish – no amount of physical cosmetics would fix such a thing. Miranda knew he wouldn't dream of it either.

As her palm rounded the shape of his thigh following stitch mark after stitch mark, her knuckles brushed against a relaxed hand of his. Her eyes shot up to bore into his, wondering if her brief contact with something not permitted set a particular frightful rage.

But her glance was met with nothing. His eyes were too busy following her fingertips as they danced along his skin and metal.

She wondered, as she stared at his face, noting the familiar frown lines and heavy set eyes, if he still thought himself whole?

For to her, he still was.

And she had hands to prove it with.


	5. odium

**notes**: set during ME3. hate-sex.

* * *

He hated her; every single inch of her – a level of distaste so untoward that it was seemingly carved into his skull. He hated the way she curved, the way she moved, the steady timbre of her accent, and the way her throat mumbled in the morning. The scent of her hair, the feel of her thighs, and sharp crisp ice blue of her eyes – he despised every inch of the flesh that embodied so-called perfection. The silk touch of her skin could drive him mad, a blinding anger mixed with tumbles of lust and greed, a swell in his throat and otherwise noted places – the coo of her voice in his ear that sends painful shivers shrieking down his spine, demanding that he deserved more than just a purr and a whisper of falsehoods.

But she was made of falsehoods, wrapped around him in writhing glory, a hiss for a purr, a shudder for a scrape. Even the way her nails dug into his back screamed of disobedience, the steady trickle of molten crimson slithering down the sleek muscles of his spine. The way she let him have his way at the start, it reeked of tricks; but through yanks of hair and teeth bored into sinew of shoulders, he came to understand through the bucking of her hips and the sleek feel of her insides that it was all just another ruse. To lull him into a state of total dominance before she gagged and bludgeoned it away from him.

But for all his hatred and the sickening ways that she was just another poison, his fingers still carded through her hair, jerking her head back to expose her neck, lips and teeth skimming across the surface of her pulse, tongue laving at sweat soaked skin as his hips brutalized against hers, the sloppy sound of flesh knitting together sang like rhapsody in his ears, echoed only by the sharp notes of her moans. The fingers streaking across his back caused him arch further into her, a blissful sensation coupled by the rolling heat against his pelvis and the callused feel of her heels locking around his thighs.

He could feel her writhe underneath him as his mouth latched onto her collarbone, harsh nips that drew small rivulets of red while his hands slid down the length of her body to grab at her hips, to hoist in a position more ready, open, and submissive for him. Mouth opening in a wordless groan as tender flesh of his shoulder blades ripped open, her own hands moving up to yank at his neck and hair, he knew it was all too easy this time around. Such simple behavior born of dangerous predators, each violent in their own right, both seeking to earn more than they can stomach, and willing to pay an iron price for the pound of flesh they so neatly deserve.

But between pants and gasps, groans and shrieks – the foul taste in his mouth only seemed to deepen in disgust, as he own body reacted to hers, craved hers, something more than just a simple touch – a deep mutilated feeling that twisted inside his gut as her hips rocked and keened on his, her mouth spilling demands and luscious mewls. He couldn't put his finger on it, not while so buried within her, ramming and pounding into bitter oblivion as he chased his own goal as much as hers. All he knew was that he hated it, with every stretch of muscle, every fiber, every nerve, and every time her eyes locked with his and her lips formed around the sound of his name in the most sinful of whispers.

And he couldn't, wouldn't have it any other way.


	6. battle

**notes**: set during Priority Mission: Sanctuary. Angst, gore, nsfw.

* * *

It would have been battle, if anything, it truly was. There was skin, noise, and blood – but with all battles, there is a victor and none yet to be held in this instance or this day. It was cacophony of guilt, racketeering off metal walls and sturdy consciences, a buildup of unadulterated rage and lost secrets, sewn together with the barest of strings and broken bones.

A hand at her face, clawing and scraping as her back pressed against the cool plated surface of a table. This was retribution, this was an answer, this was everything not spoken in the past year that ached and shrieked to pour out of their souls. If they had souls anymore.

She couldn't help the hard swallow lodging in her throat as hips flushed against her own- violent and needy, her hands threaded and yanking in ebony locks as soft as silk, thumbs gouging into cheekbones where a visor was once donned – only lithe scars remained, scraps and scratches from brutal demand upon a porcelain face, carved out of malicious stone and intent. Miranda couldn't help the demand set upon her person, the way her legs curved and wrapped around his hips, how she hugged him closer – the loose idle threat for control lurking like shadows in the back of her mind.

But he would probably kill her.

Even after all of this, after the display of flesh, blood, and silence torn bare – death was inmate upon her person. He demanded answers in his own way, taking from her body what her mouth refused to leak – her skin, her muscle, her bones all projecting a simplistic idea of betrayal unwarranted. He would hear no apologies from her, only from her tears, from her hips, and her last moans. The other hand wrapped tightly about her neck as her lungs sang bleated gasps to him, hips begging and starving up to meet his.

A soft warm feeling trickled down her face; he drew first blood as she knew crimson lined her cheekbones – still clad in the barest of garb, a finale of fury and anguish. Her lips bled from the chomping of teeth, his cheeks bruised from the graze of knuckles but beneath their barest assessments of each other laid broken people, starving and screaming. There wasn't anything left between but flesh and ire – an inferno. But what was once hot must run cold, as cold as the hue in both their eyes that spoken more barren than the arctic tundra of the lands they had trekked together, a more calculated intent than the most malicious plans they crafted.

She wanted to say sorry, but he wouldn't have any of it. Clashing their mouths together, proving a point of dominance never spoken, a plea if anything, a way of expressing loss and hurt that was so buried deep beneath the confines of emotional tyranny – that's how he kept her quiet and consoled her, sealing what would be words with violence.

She would rip out a chunk of his hair and he would bruise her hips, demanding sick pleasure taken from flesh made perfect. He would make her imperfect, give her cause to crave and mark the mistakes she made upon lily white flesh. She would make him whole, calling out the more primal mistakes and urgencies, a humanist quality found in those left to the wayside of society.

But with the hitches of breath and the parting of lips set wide, eyes bored into each other, and hips met for one last time, liquid ecstasy entwined with agony melded. A marriage of hatred, pure and unbridled as memories raced past their eyes. It was the stutter of his hips that gave him away, the fire in her belly that left her wanting and pleading – he would leave her so, unsatisfied but satiated. Unsatisfied with how she left everything, how she left him, the only recompense was the tremble in her legs and the shatter of her heart.

The only resounding sound left was the hollow notion of a pistol and the grating hum of a blade.

It was always a battle.


	7. ares & aphrodite

**notes**: if Miranda had stayed with Cerberus, instead of leaving with Shepard. Cerberus!AU Phantom!MirandaxKai Leng drabble [**NSFW**]

* * *

_Once on a time, where the milky region is set in a tranquil heaven, lay kindly Venus [Aphrodite] in her bower, whence night had but lately fled, faint in the rough embrace of her Getic lord [Ares] . . . Weary she lies upon her cushions, where once the Lemnian chains crept over the bed and held it fast, learning its guilty secret._

-**Statius, Silvae 1. 2. 51**

* * *

He just sat there, with the same expression on his face from the moment they started. The slight quirk to his lips ever present as she pushed his hair back, removed a few latches of his armor and worked on his belt; the same expression – his eyes ever watching her as she thrummed and moved. She looked so beautiful, more than she had ever in the past few years – decked in torn white, highlighted in gold, the deep reddish scars from her implants on her arms contrasted perfectly, the newly acquired suit torn in the thighs as she moved atop him, like liquid porcelain.

Covered fingers came to rest on his shoulders, gripping tightly as her body moved against his, vying for any type of push or pull, desperate in the way her hips and thighs quaked in the chair, restricted but all the while free to do as she pleased. He felt the canter of her body press up against his, sobbing for something, an itch to be scratched as she shuddered on him, keening and groaning in a pathetic manner than could only please him more. He finally owned her – something that was completely his for the taking, to use and claim whenever he so desired and to have her want and strive after him on his heels like the good girl he trained her to be.

He moved a hand to grasp on her hip, the claws of his glove biting through soft material into flesh as his eyes idly wandered to watch crimson dribble. It halted her, a lesson taught long ago – he flicked his tongue over his lips, dark eyes switching over her form from his hand, to where he was encased snugly in her tightness, up the generous swell of her breasts sealed in tight material, to the blushing face normally hidden by a visor so perfect.

"Sir?" Her voice was a whisper, a husk to a needy whine as her hips rocked just so back and forth, trying to entice something out of him aside from stillness. But no such thing would come from it- he had to show her, had to teach her that if she wanted something, she had to learn how to beg for it properly. Until that moment, he would give her no quarter but the rules remained the same.

"Tell me."

"Tell you?"

"Tell me what you want, Lawson. That's an order." He sounded like liquid on gravel as the words poured from his mouth, eyes washing over her body to gauge reaction. It was a level of control that he mastered when it came to her, something acquired over years and years of spending hate-filled nights, restless with the idea, the thought, the meager memories of her name, her scent, her touch that drove him to the point of stillness. And when she came crawling back to him, it was all too wonderful, and he made sure she was on her knees more often than not.

Her brow furrowed, mouth tightening as he let go of her thigh, hand settling back down on the armrest of the chair, just watching her. Watching her as she picked up speed, fingers slipping loosely from his shoulder into his hair as she pushed herself down on his hardness, fucking herself between breaths and mewls.

"I want you, I want to feel you any chance I get. I want you punish me, fuck me, have me just as you would every day, every second that you can. I never want you to leave me, the feel of you inside me, around me… I'll do anything, s—" Before she could utter the last bit, he pressed a finger to her lips, tsking some as his own hips lightly thrust to join hers in reward, but an urge to continue. "Leng," that earned her a smile as his finger pulled away to tap lightly against her collar bone before dragging down the simple clothing between her breasts, ripping the fabric to grace his vision with the milky curves of her. "Just let me be yours."

Her bouncing started again with urgency, slamming herself down on him as her knees locking around the restrictions of his hips and the metal of the chair, finger yanking and pulling at his hair. He watched as her body bowed and rocked, his own fingers itching to seize her hips and force her to a pace all his own, but that wasn't the point of this. Gasps and moans echoed off the walls as her insides quickened around him, a shudder of muscle and a liquid pool of heat as her entire body sang the gospel of her war god. It was familiar for him as well, the coiling tension before blinding release as his own body wrecked havoc against him, a jerk and a thrust to follow her on the plains of oblivion.

The silk sound of her breathing and the downy touch of her ebony hair was all that swam in his mind as her body collapsed on his, head burrowing in the crook of his neck as her hips slicked forward, burrowing him deeper as the aftershocks took them. She wouldn't get up, not until he told her to, his damned Aphrodite but placid and cruel reassurance was in order.

His hand carded through sweaty locks of her hair, scratching on her scalp as he kept her close, humming in her ear.

"Don't be foolish, Lawson. You have _always_ been mine."


End file.
